Saturn

Saturn is best around opposition, when Earth passes between it and the Sun. Then it rises around sunset, is up all night and is at its brightest.

Saturn was at opposition on October 4, 2026, so it is still well placed in the evening sky. The next opposition is on October 18, 2027.

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest. Like Jupiter, it is mostly hydrogen and helium, and it is so light for its size that its average density is lower than water’s.

Its rings are made of countless pieces of ice and rock, from dust grains to boulders. They are vast but thin: hundreds of thousands of kilometers wide and, in most places, only tens of meters thick.

The tilt of the rings, as seen from Earth, changes over Saturn’s 29-year orbit. Twice per orbit they turn edge-on and almost disappear in small telescopes, most recently in 2025. In the years after that they slowly open up again.

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is bigger than the planet Mercury and has a thick atmosphere. Many more moons have been found, most of them small and distant.

The Cassini spacecraft orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017. It discovered jets of water ice erupting from the small moon Enceladus and ended its mission with a planned plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere.